


The Galra Virus

by justgottabehonest



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Body Horror, Horror, Human!Allura, Implied/Referenced Suicide, One-armed shiro, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Swearing, Zombie Apocalypse, human!coran, really sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2018-11-04 21:05:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10998972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justgottabehonest/pseuds/justgottabehonest
Summary: A small team of cadets, a drop out and his brother, and the genius heiress and her research partner all team up to save the world from the Galra Virus.





	1. The Cadets

It took three months for the world to end.  The first week was Ebola all over again, reports of people dying with purple bruises covering their bodies in Dallas caused the continent to go into mild panic.  Still there was hope, blogs, Facebook posts, making jokes with the general idea of, “This could never happen to me;” but, week five showed that this was no laughing matter.  The media didn’t report that the recently dead were completely dead, that it took a lot more than the virus itself to die, and they didn’t even report how vile the virus made you. No one could get those leaked images out of their minds.  Infectees bruises would cover them head-to-toe as their blood vessels burst, their eyes went yellow from sudden Jaundice, and just how alien it all looked could make a well-worn soldier sick.   No one was prepared: all for the sake of controlling mass panic.  The panic came anyway, airlines were shut down, people rioted, nothing was sane; weeks 6-10, everyone was either killing or being killed.  The military was mobilized in that time, the military academies had a very brief and sudden graduation of all their students, practically all of them were dead within weeks 11-12.  Twelve weeks, three whole months for the world to end.

    Yet, humanity persisted.  People survived the world’s end, people refused to let themselves die.  The Galaxy Garrison, the military academy closest to Ground Zero was mobilized first during week 10.  Everyone, excluding the staff, was no more than 19.  A bunch of kids were being sent out to fight monsters, monsters that you couldn’t reason with or attempt peace with.  Pidge Gunderson, Lance McClain and Hunk Garett stood in the back of the meeting hall with their classmates as their general spoke with a resigned solemnness, “Today, we are being mobilized to serve our country…  Today, we will give our lives to our nation.  Today, we grant you the power of clemency, the victims who are now enemies of this great nation….”

    Pidge and Hunk hung their heads in silence as they listened, silently resigned to their fate.  It’s not like they hadn’t seen any movies, they knew they stood no chance in the Garrison.  For a moment they thought they were just going to die like everyone else.  But, not Lance, Lance would not die that easily.

    Hunk and Pidge were suddenly being dragged out by their arms.  They tried to protest only for Lance to silence them, “My mom didn’t send me to this place to die.”

    Almost wordlessly, they took to their rooms, and grabbed what they needed.  Lance and Hunk grabbed their snack stashes, their hidden cell phones, family photos and a few good changes of clothes.  Pidge grabbed their laptop and signal enhancing set-up, their knives, along with their other necessities and sentimental photos.  The regrouped in their cafeteria to steal more food, Lance looked so determined, so without guilt for what they were doing.  It scared his classmates, but not enough for them stop, not enough for them not to try and save themselves.  Their next stop was to grab guns from the weapons room on the bottom floor, Pidge had no trouble hacking the door, then they snuck to the vehicle bay, not daring to make any noise in fear of being caught.  Of course, their luck, they’re found.

    “What are you kids doing?” they didn’t recognize the old man, only his uniform.

    The trio looked at each other, trying to come up with a quick lie.  Falling short, Lance draws his weapon, a rifle that looks far to fitting for someone as young as him, “Just let us go, and you don’t have to get hurt!”

“Lance!” Hunk and Pidge exclaimed at him, they had no idea how serious the Cuban boy was.

The man looked shocked for a second before some wave of relief flooded his dignified features. “You’re escaping.”

“Yeah,” Lance lowered his weapon only slightly, recognizing the man wasn’t stopping him.  “You…  Do you want to come with us?”

Bitterly he laughed, “What’s your name, son?”

“Lance…”

“Lance, I’m going to unholster my weapon and my excess ammo, okay?” the old man carefully unsheathed his pistol and magazine and got down to his knees, sliding the piece across the floor to the boy’s feet.  “Son, I appreciate your offer of a spot on your little renegade team, but I wouldn’t be much help to youngsters like you.”

“Sure you would,” Lance’s rifle lowers even more, “you know more stuff.”

“I’m a figurehead, I don’t know shit,” another bitter laugh erupted from the man’s belly. “I can only teach you one thing: how to grant someone clemency.”

Hunk gasped from behind Lance, “Oh my god, sir, we can’t do that.”

“Clemency?” Lance asked while a heavy feeling was growing in his gut.

The man nodded.  “You now can give mercy to the infected…  To those who are not able to fight themselves, and those who are close to death…”

Pidge, tensed up entirely at that moment, Hunk couldn’t look at the scene any more, and Lance himself nearly dropped the rifle.  “You’re….  You’re none of those things, sir…”

“My daughter was in Dallas when it all happened….” his eyes shone with so much sadness.  The outbreak had only just begun at that point, Lance and the others barely knew how much was lost, how many lives were lost. “I might as well be dead.”

“N-no!  I can’t!”

“Repeat after me…”

Lance shook his head furiously, his heart refusing, “No! I can-”

“This is an order, Cadet!” he shouted and Lance shut his mouth instinctively, but his hands still shook,  “Repeat after me…  ‘I, Lance, Cadet of the Galaxy Garrison.’”

“I, Lance, Cadet of the Galaxy Garrison,” Lance’s voice shook uncontrollably in sync with his hands.  

“‘Will give to you your peace, your honor, and a remembered life.’”

“Will give to you your peace,” the boy took in the deepest breath of his life trying to settle himself, “your honor, and a remembered life.”

“‘I grant you Clemency…’”

“I grant you Clemency,” he repeated and raised his weapon.

“Lance, don’t!” Pidge shouted.

“Dude!  Just knock him out or something!” Hunk said as he then gasped a little breath of air, “I’m gonna be sick, oh my god.”

Lance looked between the man and his team.  "Death…  death isn’t mercy, death is death.  There is nothing forgiving about death, death isn’t how this goes."  Lance lowers his rifle, “I grant you Clemency by giving you your life.”

The man rose to one knee, “Wait! Please!  You can’t leave me to die with the rest of them!  I can’t go another minute without my little girl!”

“I wish you luck, sir,” Lance looked at the standard issue at his feet, and with his foot, he kicked it carefully to slide it across the floor to the now crying official.  “Guys, lets go!”

Pidge and Hunk had already turned tail, but Lance took a slower pace, and walked backwards just in case the man would choose to fire on them. He picked up the pistol, examining it carefully.  Once again, he locked eyes with the Galaxy cadet.  Before Lance realized what was going to happen, before he could even take a step back towards the man, the gun already went off.  The boy’s jaw went slack at the man hit the ground and his stomach lurched.  His body took over and Lance started running.

The other two didn’t dare ask what the boom was when Lance caught up to them, and Lance couldn’t bring himself to tell them.  The three of them commandeered a slightly beat-up Lightweight Tactical All Terrain Vehicle, what it lacked in armor it made up for in speed.  Hunk manned a gun from the passenger side, Pidge settled themself in the back with their nose buried in their computer.

It took them about an hour of flooring it through the sand and rock terrain before the teens felt safe enough to slow down, to regroup themselves, to let the adrenaline calm down, and  Lance to process what the old man did.  “Pidge…”  Lance looks over at the younger cadet, “where’s a good place to take shelter?”

“Well…  Huh,” Pidge scanned over their computer, “we have surprisingly good satellite reception here.  Give me a second.”

“We do?” Hunk and Lance exchange a look.

“Do you think it’s safe if we try and call our family?”

Pidge perked up, their voice not so pleased, “You brought your phones?!”

“Well…” the older boys realized their mistake, but made no move to apologize for it.

Pidge sighed and typed furiously on their computer, “Go ahead…  They haven’t missed us yet, and we can ditch the phones afterward.”

“Yes!”  they rejoiced and dialed their families. Their excitement faded all too soon, Hunk was only met with a disconnected line, Lance only kept getting his father’s voicemail.

Hunk sagged in his seat, “Pidge…  Do you think it got to Honolulu?  The virus?”

Pidge didn’t meet the chubby teen’s eyes, “They only shut the airlines down after Alaska reported victims…”

“Oh my god, oh my god,” he leant forward to rest his head on the dash, “I’m gonna hurl.”

“Save your fluids, Hunk,” Pidge said as reassuringly as possible.

Lance, was hardly listening to them.  He kept dialing and dialing, only ever getting the voicemail.  “Come on, come on!” Lance hissed into his device, ready to chuck it into the desert.  “Dad!  Pick up!”

To this day, Lance wished his father didn’t pick up, but at that moment Lance smiled wide as he was met with a, “Lance?   _Mi hijo_ , is that you?”

Furiously, Lance spoke in slurring languages, the reprieve making him smile even more.  Pidge and Hunk watched him in shared comfort, but the two also felt a pang of jealousy.   “Where’s Mama and _Abuela_?  Angela?  Kyle?  Ronaldo? Alex?”  When the line was silent, Lance’s heart started to stop, “Dad?  Where are they?”

“I…” the line crackled as Lance’s father took in a deep breath, “I had to save them.”

  
“What?  Dad, where are they?!” he said more frantically.

“ _Mi hijo_ , Miami isn’t…  It isn’t safe here, your brothers and sisters are too little…  They were too little…  Your mom….   _Mi amor_ never came back from the store with your grandma…  Oh, god,” a strangled sob came over the line.  “I had to save my kids!  I had to save them!”

“Dad…  Dad you didn’t!”

    “Stay safe, Lance, please stay safe, you’re the only one strong enough to survive this.   _Te amo….  Te amo, mi hijo…_ ”

    The line went dead and the phone slid from Lance’s hand and landed with a sharp crack on the floor of their vehicle.  Lance didn’t know if he was breathing.  His body started moving on his own, he practically fell out of the driver’s seat and scuffed his hands on the hard, dry, ground.  He could barely crawl forward, the will to live and the need to keep running conflicted with each other.

    Immediately the other two knew something had happened, but, Hunk was the only one who exited the vehicle.  “Lance?”

  
    “Stay away from me, Hunk,” Lance struggled to push the words out.

    “Dude, what happened?” the bigger teen knelt down next to his friend.  “Lance?!”

    “Get away from me!” Lance was able to push himself up.

    “Lance stop!” Pidge called from their place in the back seat, making a move to join them.

    Hunk grabbed Lance firmly by the shoulders, but the Cuban boy refused to meet his eyes.  He said something to him, but Lance didn’t even hear it.  All he could think about was the man back at the base, the man wanting to die because his daughter wasn’t there anymore.  Lance never could have dreamed to know what if felt like.  Lance wasn’t sure if he could keep going, knowing how scared his brothers and sister must have been, not knowing for sure what had happened to his mom, how angry he was at his father.    He wanted to die, that second that he realized that felt like a century.

    “Lance, hey,” Lance felt himself being shook by strong hands.  “Look, it’ll all be okay.”

    Lance looked up into his friend’s face, he could immediately tell that he was lying, and something about that broke Lance even more, but at the same time Lance knew that Hunk and Pidge were all he had now.  His face felt wet, tears streaming down his cheeks and Hunk pulled him into a someone crushing hug.  Lance wailed until his throat hurt, and all the while Hunk lied, “It’ll all be okay.”


	2. The Geniuses

“I wish you’d stop saying that,” Allura rests her head on her knees, eyeing her  _ technically _ former college from her make-shift bed.  “None of this is okay, Coran.  Look at where we are…  where we’ve been since this whole thing started.”

Coran stops counting cans, carefully he leans forward, pressing his forehead to the smooth, cold, metal of their supply shelf.  “Allura, of course I know that.  But, if we’re going to make it through this, one of us is going to have to stay positive.”

The woman looks at her fingernails, noticing the polish that hasn’t chipped away completely and proceeds to pick at it.  “What exactly are we trying to make it through, Coran?”

“What?”

“What are we trying to make it through?” she repeats herself more sternly. “There’s nothing out there anymore.  No prissy art galas or Nobel Prizes.  No Casinos to spend the weekend at, no new technology being invented, not even sleazy university professors trying to use me to get a spot in this goddamn lab!  We have nothing to live for, Coran!”

Coran slams his fist against the shelf, causing the cans to fall over onto their sides.  “Don’t say that!  Please, out of all the people left in the world, please don’t say that to me!”

“I’m being realistic!”

“Pessimistic!” he whips around to face her. “Allura, why can’t you understand that we’re probably the last people on Earth that can save humanity.”

“How?!  We’ve been trapped in this room for months!” she slowly rises from her space on the floor.  “And they’re still out there!  I can hear them, moaning, screaming, scratching, and wailing against these walls…  In the air vents…  We don’t have a chance of leaving the building alive!  We don’t know how many are in the city!  We could be massacred the second we step foot out of this facility, if we even make it that far...”

“Well, then, Dr. Altea, what do you propose?” he takes a step forward, orange eyebrows furrowing with more and more anger.  “Even if we go down to half a can a day, we still barely have enough food for two more months.  Do you suggest we just sit here and starve?  Or would you like to take a can opener to your neck?  Make me watch you die…?” It looks like something in Coran’s heart breaks.  He feels so ashamed of his passionate words, being in the heat of the moment isn’t his strong suit.  Coran can’t look her in the eyes any longer, so, he lets his gaze drift towards their shelf-barricaded entryway.  “Allura, your father made me barricade that door…  Made me swear that I’d do everything in my power to protect you, so that we could fix his mistake.  Christ, I barely even care about that.  You’re the only family I’ve got left, you’re the last hope I have left.  I need you to stop talking like that, I need you to be ready to fight to survive.”

“Where… we are we going?” she doesn’t let the tears for her father well up in her eyes, but her voice shakes nonetheless.  

“Indianapolis was always your father’s Plan B.  He kept paper back-ups of everything he ever did there.” Coran explains, taking in a slow breath as he moves away from the shelf and towards the other corner of the room where they keep the things they didn’t need at the moment and that aren’t heavy enough to add to their barricade.  He crouches down, rummaging through the haphazard pile, “Your father, I swear.  Silliest idea I had ever heard: _ Build a lab in Indiana, no one in the movies goes to Indiana for anything. _ ”  

Somehow, that pulls a chuckle from Allura’s throat.  Pushing her gold-framed glasses up her nose, she carefully steps toward the pile where her friend kneels.  “Father always did adore the Cinema.” She reaches past him, grabbing the Altean Industries souvenir backpack that he is most likely searching for.  “Ironically enough….”

“His favorite movies were about Zombies…” Coran meets eyes with her once again and something like laughter bubbles up from the two.  It isn’t hysterical, just smiling, bitter laughter that the two share for a moment.  Allura crouches next to him, the fit of laughter dying as Coran pulls her into his arms.

From the outside, this gesture could be mistaken as romantic, but that is far from the truth.  Allura squeezes her eyes shut, trying not to breath in Coran’s cheap cologne that barely masked three months worth of body odor; she tries her hardest to imagine her father, the way he smelled, the gentleness of the giant man, and how he always called her  _ princess  _ when she was angry with him.  Allura wished she had never been angry with her father, wished she could take all the bad days back.

Coran’s eyes, on the other hand, are open and forlorn.  He can picture in the back of his mind the day he met Allura in this building: platinum hair in pigtails, timidly hiding behind her father’s legs.  She was Dr. Alfor Altea’s pride and joy, and on that day, Coran understood why.  Everyday since then she came to the lab, Coran taught her something new and she in turn brought a smile to his face; until the days came where the roles were reversed and Coran couldn’t have been more proud.  Allura was the closest thing he had to daughter and he knew he had to do all he can to protect her.  Not just for Alfor, but for himself.

He lets her go, lightly resting his hands on her shoulders, “We leave in 24 hours….  We get to the parking garage, siphon gas from my car, and then we take off in yours.  Plan B: we hoof it until we find transportation.  Any questions?”

“Is there a Plan C?”

“Plan C is Plan Coran.  Meaning, you’ll save the word in one swoop and I will get all the credit.”

They don’t laugh, the two only smile, and hope that everything works out.


	3. The Drop Out

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Pidge asks from their seat looking at their fellow cadets in the front end of the vehicle.  They push up their glasses, getting no answer, “I mean…  It isn’t the most logical thing for us.  Heck, this is practically suicidal. You can just drop me off at the next operational car, give me a fair share of supplies, and you both can go find somewhere safe.”

Hunk laughs, twisting around to look at Pidge.  “Dude, there’s nowhere safe anymore.  Safest place is with each other.  Lance is the best shot in the Garrison, you keep track of whoever is still out there, and I can keep this piece of junk running and keep the both of you from giving yourselves food poisoning.  You do the math, I think we’re all more likely to live if we stick together.  If one of us wants to go somewhere, we all go.”

Lance nods in agreement, tired eyes still on the deserted road, “Besides…  What else can we even do?  The last week of chilling in the desert waiting for the army to implode sucked.  I, for one, am all up for saving your girlfriend and her family.  It’s something to...” Lance sighs, gripping the steering wheel a little harder, fighting through the mind-numbing driving and sleep deprivation. “Ugh, nevermind.  So, we’re heading to Dallas?  You sure they’re there?”

“Yeah…” Pidge takes their laptop from its fixture in their set-up.  Wedging themself between the two front seats, they set it on the dash between the two older teenagers, pulling up pictures and profiles of an older man and of two teenagers.  “Dr. Sam Holt and his two kids: Matt and Katie…”

“Oooooh!” Lance coos, “so, Katie is your girlfriend?!”

“Dude, it’s weird how much you look alike. You could be triplets.” Hunk comments with a quirked brow and a hand on his chin.

They swallow hard, “What, what can I say?  Ever hear the phrase, ‘I’d fuck me?’”

“True, true,” the driver nods in agreement.

“You know, you both are gross human beings.”

Pidge lets out a soft sigh, pushing up their glasses and rolling their head to relieve the tension in their neck, “Okay, okay.  Focus, guys.  But, Dr. Holt is a Botanist, he mostly worked on super-breeding plants to withstand harsher environments.  Potatoes on Mars and stuff like that.  Matt is his intern.”

“What about Katie?” Lance asks, “How do you know she’s with them?”

“She…” Pidge hesitates, biting their lip anxiously. Lance and Hunk are silent, gut feeling shared between them that there isn’t a good answer, that Pidge is searching for answer that Hunk couldn’t find for his own situation.  “She…  Katie’s homeschooled, and she brings them…   _ Brought  _ them coffee during her lunch break.  Everyday since she was 11 she always gave them coffee, it’s probably her favorite time of day.  Well,  _ was  _ her favorite time of day before shit hit the fan.  So, she  _ has _ to be with them...”

Lance glances at the friend beside him, longingly staring at the pictures on the screen, their last connection to how things were before.  Lance grits his teeth, tearing his eyes away from them.  He forces himself to keep his hands on the wheel, avoiding the full body urge to take his own pictures from his belongings.  Then again, Lance doesn’t know what he wants to do with them.  Throw them out of the window and let them rot, set them on fire, stare at them and wonder if it was at least painless…  Maybe just cry some more, but crying didn’t solve it the first time, and his dad never liked it when he cried.  Lance couldn’t stop the bitter thought from crossing his mind.   _ As if I should care about that. _

Pidge has to save the computer from crashing onto Hunk’s lap when the vehicle veers too hard to avoid a deserted maroon dirt bike in the road.  A twisted part of Lance wanted the damn thing to break, to make Pidge stop having that sad look in their eye…  That  _ hopeful _ look in their eye.  “Sorry, man,” Lance mutters with a half smile as the short cadet resets themself in the back. 

“It’s cool, just give some warning next time, ‘kay?” they shoot their own small smile back.  All that smile does is make the lead ball of guilt in Lance’s chest swell up.

Hunk, as if somehow psychically sensing Lance’s conflicting emotions, speaks up to do the one thing he does best: cheer everyone up.  “Dude, should we go back and get that dirt bike?”

“No, waste of time and resources,” Pidge states, not even looking up from whatever they had just started doing.

“Hmmm…  It was a pretty sweet ride,” Lance diverts his gaze to the side mirror, seeing the red paint get smaller and smaller behind them.

“Totally pick up chicks in that, dude,” the large boy chuckles cheekily.

“What chicks?!” Pidge is absolutely flabbergasted at the notion at hand.  “We are in an Apocalypse.  Not just any Apocalypse, a  _ Zombie Apocalypse.   _ No woman who is still alive is gonna give a damn about what you’re driving!”

 “Oh, contraire my good man!” he looks back behind him.  “Ladies these days are literally just  _ dying  _ to hop onto something that’s fast!”

Pidge scoffs, their face twisting into the epitome of smugness.  “The ladies are going to be all over you then, right?”

Hunk gasps, putting a hand over his mouth trying to hide the smile coating his face.  “Neither of those jokes are not okay in any way!!”

“Guys…”

Pidge giggles, a whole hearted giggle that didn’t feel forced out, “Out of everyone in this vehicle  _ I _ have to tell  _ you _ to lighten up?!”

“Guys…!”

Hunk shakes his head, “Okay, your joke was fine.  Lance, dude, yours was messed up.”

“Guys!  Look!” Lance points ahead of them, a figure on the horizon.  From their distance, the other two could barely make out a silhouette of a teenager wearing red.  “I think that’s Keith!”

“Who’s Keith?!” Pidge starts double checking the clamps on his equipment.

“Lance, how can you tell?” Hunk asks frantically.

The all-terrain vehicle lurches forward as the Cuban boy puts the pedal to the floor. “I just know!”

Hunk and Pidge gasp as Lance hurls them towards the boy.  They share a mutual look of terror as they brace themselves.  Had Lance gone insane?  Was he gonna run this kid over?  “This speed is totally unnecessary!” Pidge shouts.

“Just watch!” 

By this time, the alleged, “Keith,” had stopped walking.  As they drew closer, they make out the longsword on his back, and the fact that this guy had a hand on the gun strapped to his hip.  Hunk screams as Lance slammed on the breaks, turning the wheels causing the rubber to screech against the asphalt.  The three feel themselves almost tip over, but Hunk leans himself as far out the window as he possibly could to counteract the force. What Lance has pulled off is being nose-to-nose with Keith and not mowing him down with the car.  The driver clears his throat, “Well, well, well-” his opening statement is punctuated with the sound of Hunk vomiting  “- if it isn’t ol’ Keith.  How’ve you been, Mullet?”

The Korean kid blinks a few times, looking at each member of the cadet team.  “Do I know you?”

“Know me?!” the metaphorical steam coming out of his ears is almost visable.  “Dude!  At least make a guess!  We’re cadets from the Garrison that you got  _ kicked out of! _  And besides, we were rivals!  The name’s  _ Lance _ .”

“Oh…  right, you were in Captain Class.”

“ _ Sergeant Class, _ ” he replies, “I got promoted when you got the boot.”

Keith shakes his head, letting the grip on his gun go and pivoting away, “If you stopped just to gloat and make yourself feel better, fuck off.   None of that’s even important anymore.”

Lance sputters, “What?  No?  Look, Keith, Keith, hold up for a sec!”  The sword-wielding teenager keeps walking, unphased if not annoyed.  Pidge and Hunk stare at the other cadet, faces plastered in confusion as he continues on calling out to the dropout.  “Wait!  Dude, stop!”   
“Lance, what are you doing?!” Pidges hisses under their breath.

Lance opens the door to step out.  Immediately, Keith draws his gun, turning around to face Lance once again, “I said:  _ fuck off _ .”

He throws his hands up in the air, “Easy, easy.  Okay, so you don’t remember the good days at the Garrison.” The other two watch anxiously, hands to their own guns ready to draw.  “That said, I may have come off as a huge douche.”

“Understatement.”

“As I was saying…  Let’s put that aside.” Lance grits his teeth, a smile forcing itself on his face.  “I know you, you hold the best record in the Garrison’s history for number of practice-matches won in a single day.  You blew through all the obstacle courses like they were nothing.  Physically, you were one of the best guys at that hell hole.  Well, besides me.  And you were never able to quite beat my target practice scores, or Pidge’s test scores, or Hunk’s eating record.”

“And your point?” Keith snaps. 

“My point being is: that was your ride back there, right?  The bike with the sick paintjob?”

He confirms Lance’s statement with a curt nod.

“You need wheels, my group and I happen to be going your direction, and you could be incredibly useful,” Lance slowly shuts the door, gesturing with his thumb to the back seat.  “Get in.”

His face remains shrewd, glaring at Lance and his former classmate.  Keith didn’t want to admit that he’s tired, that his legs are already cramping from walking a few miles, that his mouth is incredibly dry, or that he hasn’t eaten in days.  Next to his hunger, Keith feels in his gut that these guys might only be trouble for him.  He sighs, putting away his gun, “Where you heading?”

Pidge opens up a door for him, still eyeing the stranger warily, “Dallas.”

A ride to Dallas is something Keit can’t refuse.  He climbs in next to the shorter teen, “Where in Dallas?”

Lance puts on the gas with a triumphant hoot.  Hunk chuckles at his friend before answering, “Lion Industry Labs.  We’re gonna rescue Pidge’s girlfriend and her family.”

“What?” his face shows more surprise than when Lance almost ran over him. “That’s where my brother is.”

  
“Your brother?!” they turn to their computer, already having Keith’s file pulled up from the second Lance had stopped. “Your file says you’re a ward of the state.”

“Foster brother,” he huffs, removing the weapon off his back so that he can sit more comfortably. “His parents were the ones that encouraged me to enroll at the Garrison…  We kept in touch, but, he went missing at L.I.L. about a year ago.  Considering the fact that was the same lab that created the Galra Virus…  I’m guessing he might still be there somewhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted Keith to say Fuck


	4. The Solider

Takashi Shirogane, known as Shiro to those he likes, is alive, but, hardly aware of that fact. His head pounds, foggy and muddled, still he urges himself to be conscious. His heart starts fluttering, as if trying to fly directly out of his chest, and something in his brain is screaming at him to get up and move, to get out and run. He can’t force his eyes to open, he can’t force himself to anything more than breath.

  
“There’s a breach…”

  
“...and what about the two…”

  
“Not our concern… ...if we hurry we can…”

  
Rustling… Sounds of frantic movements in a confined space, metal clanking to the ground, and more voices slowly becoming more and more clear.

  
“And Project Champion? What are that witch’s orders?”

  
A bitter snicker filters through the room, “Terminate it.”

  
“Come on! We can’t just kill him!”.

  
“Project Champion has served us well, but, it will all be for nothing if we’re killed before we can deliver the results.”

  
“We could have delivered them during our last contact with Command.”

  
“And make ourselves expendable? No, we won’t be safe until we get to Command with the results. And Project Champion isn’t needed for that, I will not die for some freak to live.”

  
A frustrated sigh escapes from someone’s lips, Shiro focuses on the voice trying to bargain his life on his behalf. “I know we’ve done some pretty awful shit, but, we gotta at least give this man a fair shot after everything we’ve put him through. He didn’t even get a year before the virus broke out... Just look at him!” Our unconscious soldier feels the weight of the silence in his chest and someone move closer to him. He thinks for a second an animal that an animal is pressing up against his shoulder, but it feels more like a paw… An extremely hairy human hand. “The testing, the mutilation… Have a heart!”

  
“He’ll kill us when he wakes up.”

  
The kind voice unholsters a weapon, setting it next to Shiro’s head, “I’ll leave him my gun, he won’t wake up for another day. If the infected get here then he dies, if they don’t he has a fighting chance… Or he could just end it.”

  
Shiro’s mind races, he knows so little, and yet that last phrase just shook him to the core. Another question to add to the already growing list of questions: how bad has the world gotten?

  
“Fine, just hurry the hell up.”

  
More frantic movements, and two minutes later Shiro hears the door slam shut. Terror is not something that Shiro ever thought he’d feel, terror is an emotion that people with so few things to loose feel. In the pit of his gut he knows that for however long he’s been out, he’s lost almost everything. Family, colleagues, friends… How bad is it? How bad is it about to get?

  
Finally, his strength returns to him, he pries open his eyes, seeing a small laboratory that’s messy and cluttered, signs of too many people occupying the same space, and a pile of smashed computers laying in the corner which Shiro can only assume is the same place that a putrid smell is coming from. He looks down at himself, his own body feels unwashed and the scrubs he dressed in are stained with various strange colors. His eyes fixate on the gun that was laid next to him, instinctively he reaches over to grab it, he feels his fingers brush against the familiar steel, but his hand is not in his line of sight. “Oh… Oh god,” he feels the bile rush up his throat as his eyes rest upon the stump that was once his right arm, “no, no, no… No, this isn’t happening.” He feels himself wiggle his fingers, he can feel himself do it and just can’t see it. He thinks it has to be a trick, some futuristic cloaking device, but another attempt for the gun doesn’t cause it to move.

  
With his remaining arm, he touches the warm metal plate that caps the end of his arm, it’s warm to the touch. It feels so inhuman…

  
Not the time for this, he thinks to himself, not the time to linger on something he can’t help now. With his good hand he grabs the gun; it’s a standard glock, black steel with no safety. He brings his knees up, pointing the barrel away from him as he clamps his knees around the gun and tries to maneuver the magazine out with one hand. It’s full, eight rounds, none in the chamber, but something catches his eye. The third bullet down appears to have pink casting. Upon further inspection, the bullet has a ring of paper around it, frayed as if it was ripped. Knowing it’s going to be a pain in the ass to reload later, Shiro unloads the bullets, the third one springs free with the paper coming off of it as well. Unfolding it, hereads, “VENT BY THE SHIT CORNER,” in hasty script.

  
His eyes stray back to the putrid smelling corner, and he sees the vent in question slightly covered by an abandoned computer monitor. “Fuckin great,” he sighs. He holds his breath and quickly retrieves the bag out from its hiding solace with some difficulties, being down one arm is already a major pain in Shiro’s ass. The effort wasn't wasted, though. The bag, easy to sling over his shoulder, had two more clips of ammo, enough food and water to last him three days, a knife, and a bit of rope: climbing rope if Shiro had to take a guess at it. The deodorant and the change of clothes is something he’s most thankful for at the exact moment; Shiro had always been the neat and tidy kind of man. Once he took the clothes out, a pink paper reared it’s head from the inside pocket of the bag. Shiro snatches it, ready for an answer, but is momentarily confused. It’s an advertisement for, “GIRLS RUN THE WORLD! Meet and Greet with world-famous Dr. Allura Altea!”

  
He flips it over, finding something much more useful to him. A drawn map of the facility, hallways and air ducts, a star indicates the room that he’s in, but a specific room is circled on the map with one simple direction. “Find her, or we all die.”

  
“Her?” the soldier ponders out loud. He flips the page back over, eyes glancing at the advertisement once again. He sees a cartoon likeness of a dark skinned woman with glasses. That's as good of a start as any for him. He dresses himself and packs up as quickly as possible, cursing himself for the amount of time it takes to reload the gun.

  
He heads towards the door and tucks the gun into the back of his pants, but as he reaches for the door handle, three shots go off in the hallway, accompanied by shouts and the echoes of many footsteps rushing around the facility. Shiro hesitates, pressing his ear to the door. The foot falls fade away, but he waits for another few seconds. A knot twisting in his gut, something is beyond that door and he knows it. Then he hears it.

  
One long, twisted, inhuman moan.

  
“What the fuck?!” he flinches away from door, feeling the fear pounding in his eardrums. Reflexively he grabs his stump and tries to slow is his breathing. Unfortunately, the thing outside heard his exclamation: BAM! BAM! BAM! The thing wails on the door, a screech from down the hall rattles Shiro. BAM! BAM BAM BAM! Two of them now, great.

  
Shiro pulls out the map of the facility, if he couldn't go out the door, the only choice he had were the vents. He heads back over to the vent next to Shit Corner, looking back down at the flyer, he sighs. His fate rested in him finding this doctor, but his own life didn't merit much of his concern. Folding the paper in half and putting it between his teeth, he had really only one thought.

  
“I’ll have to catch up to Keith later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I give Shiro his cool robot arm or nah?


End file.
